A Football Helmet with NFL Backing
Statistics on sport-related head injuries are alarming: 46,000 concussion cases are diagnosed annually in Canada. To address this public health issue, researchers Yvan Petit and Éric Wagnac from the Mechanical Engineering Department are working to improve sports helmets. And all signs point to them being on the right track. One of their innovations—now available commercially—even caught the eye of the National Football League (NFL).
Tackling the NFL Helmet Challenge
In 2019, the two researchers teamed up with the industrial consortium Kollide to compete in the NFL Helmet Challenge. The goal was to design a football helmet that’s safer than anything currently on the market.
The team brilliantly rose to the challenge—more than once!
In 2020, it was one of the four NFL Helmet Challenge teams to receive a US$238,545 grant awarded by the NFL as part of the HeadHealthTECH program. With this funding, the team had less than a year to build the helmet prototype they had designed.
The team submitted its final prototype in 2021, after designing multiple models and carrying out a range of impact tests. Three months later, they found out that the NFL was rewarding their efforts with a second grant totalling nearly US$700,000.
That gave the team the means to take their design to the next level, fine-tune it, and conduct more tests in order to bring it to market.
From idea to market launch
In 2023, the researchers and their industry partner found out that a company wanted to market their helmet.
Innovation: A competitive edge for sport helmets
The technology behind the helmet developed by ÉTS and its partners stands out from the competition with its mesh structure composition. The 3D-printed mesh has been designed to optimally absorb and redirect the energy from head impacts. This reduces linear and angular accelerations of the head, which are the root cause of serious injuries.
